THE thing with the PlayStation is that you don't have anything else to buy and it's a great, cheap CDP! If you just want just the DAC or just the transport, I don't think it's worth doing because getting just a DAC chip alone would be cheaper.

Well, the DAC is better than most commercial ones but I don't know if it's better than most of the ones used for DIY projects.

THE thing with the PlayStation is that you don't have anything else to buy and it's a great, cheap CDP! If you just want just the DAC or just the transport, I don't think it's worth doing because getting just a DAC chip alone would be cheaper.

Well, the DAC is better than most commercial ones but I don't know if it's better than most of the ones used for DIY projects.

i think that something else is going on.
it`s not just a great cheap cd player people put it next to sony xa-50es and that without modifications.

my guess is that the jitter is very low because of the 67mhz oscilator divided by 4 to give the clock frequency because the later models that don`t have it don`t sound so good.

ordinary transport .dac,output but it sounds good what`s the secret here?

A very Good question.

my thoughts are possibly

1) Possibly the distortion is 'euphonic' the Motherboard is highly complex with as many components as a typical PC. It's hard to see believe that these are low noise/jitter/distortion devices . The CD capability has to have been an afterthought and not an intrinsic part of the original design.

Maybe the noise pattern is warming up the sound ? I recall a long time ago that a cheap portable cd player sold through radio Shack was THE CD ref, despite not measuring very well (Think it was the CD3400 or something).

2) DSP. From the CD player functions on the TV screen it is possible to engage different effects modes, or set 'normal'. Does this mean DSP is always running ? Perhaps the normal mode is engineered to smooth out the usual shrill treble associated with cheap CD players. I have found that most CD players are improved by a single notch on my Quad44 tilt control (slight treble cut, slight bass boost with a slope across the whole spectrum)

3) We want it to sound good:-) We all like the cheap, the bargain, the unusual. Q: If a $100 CD/DVD player sounded the same , would we get so enthusiastic ?

Maybe a bit of all of these /

Don't get me wrong, these sound great , and messing around is a lot of fun, but when trying to figure out why they are good we have to be honest

1) Possibly the distortion is 'euphonic' the Motherboard is highly complex with as many components as a typical PC. It's hard to see believe that these are low noise/jitter/distortion devices . The CD capability has to have been an afterthought and not an intrinsic part of the original design.

Maybe the noise pattern is warming up the sound ? I recall a long time ago that a cheap portable cd player sold through radio Shack was THE CD ref, despite not measuring very well (Think it was the CD3400 or something).

2) DSP. From the CD player functions on the TV screen it is possible to engage different effects modes, or set 'normal'. Does this mean DSP is always running ? Perhaps the normal mode is engineered to smooth out the usual shrill treble associated with cheap CD players. I have found that most CD players are improved by a single notch on my Quad44 tilt control (slight treble cut, slight bass boost with a slope across the whole spectrum)

3) We want it to sound good:-) We all like the cheap, the bargain, the unusual. Q: If a $100 CD/DVD player sounded the same , would we get so enthusiastic ?

Maybe a bit of all of these /

Don't get me wrong, these sound great , and messing around is a lot of fun, but when trying to figure out why they are good we have to be honest

Just my opinion

the euphonic distortion is 2nd order harmonic distortion and is created be valves not pc components.
pc components create noise.

you right about treble roll off it sounds good but it lacks detail too which isn`t the case here.